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Students Reflect on the 12 Team College Football Playoff System

Updated College Football Playoff Bracket leading up to the National Championship game
Updated College Football Playoff Bracket leading up to the National Championship game
David Krebs

The new 12-team College Football Playoff has begun and it has stirred up plenty of controversy. While it gives more teams opportunities, it also has risks for injuries to players. The old four-team playoff format didn’t give enough teams an opportunity to compete for a championship, so the new format was created.

Sophomore and Ohio State Football fan Sahree Payne discussed what he likes about this new playoff format.

“It gives you [teams] more chances to win,” Payne said. “Usually it is just the same teams making it every year, and now it is home games. It’s gonna be amazing.“

Sophomore and Penn State Football fan Carter Tejeda also shared his own opinion on the format.

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“I prefer the four-team format because the teams are better so the matchups are better. I just feel like it’s too many teams right now,” Tejeda said.

Payne said that the College Football Playoff Committee could’ve done something to make Penn State’s path to the playoffs a bit harder.

“I think SMU and Alabama should swap places,” Payne said.

Alabama, a 9-3 team, was the committee’s first team out of the playoffs. It was a very difficult decision to take 11-2 SMU over the Crimson Tide.

Tejeda expressed that there are too many teams in this year’s playoff to create fun matchups. “I just feel like it’s too many teams in this bracket,” he said.

Payne added another note about the seeding. “The seeding was kind of weird. I didn’t understand the four teams getting the bye, that was weird,” Payne said.

In the current format, the four highest-ranked conference champions automatically got first round byes which led to all four of the top four seeds losing their first games.

Payne said Penn State has the easiest path and Ohio State has the most difficult path to the championship, while Tejeda thinks Penn State has a difficult path and Oregon has an easy path. 

Penn State actually has one of the easiest paths because it had to face tenth-ranked SMU and ninth-ranked Boise State before its upcoming game against fifth-ranked Notre Dame. None of those teams’ seeds in the bracket line up with their rankings due to the flawed system rewarding conference champions.

After three rounds of the 12-team College Football Playoff, the top four seeds are gone and Ohio State and Notre Dame are still standing. The playoff resumes on Jan. 20, when Ohio State takes on Notre Dame in the National Championship Game.

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